The Prince

Damien II: Chapter 1

Chapter 1





“What do you mean I need an escort?  I know where I’m going.”





They wouldn’t let him in.  A pair of guards, one to either side of the Towers’ western gate, Damien didn’t recognize either of them.  The Towers had evidently had a large recruiting push in past year.





“Don’t matter,” said the guard to his left.  “Still need an escort.”





Intellectually Damien knew why the guards couldn’t let him.  He understood it.  He had been a denizen of the Towers himself, after all.  That felt like a long time ago now, seeing all the new faces the guards were wearing lately and all.  Even so, them being new and his knowledge of the protocols they must obey, Damien still felt jilted.





His anger with the Marshal was not being helped by these two.  But he knew something they didn’t.  “Alright,” he said, drawing out the word.  “So escort me.”





The two guards looked at each other.  They had not expected that.  “Well, well you see,” one started.





“Well we can’t,” said the other.  “We have to stay here and guard the gate.”





Smiling, Damien nodded sympathetically.  “Sure you do.  But what about your sergeant?  Can’t he escort me?”





“Well, I don’t know…”





“Why don’t you go and find out.”  Again the guards turned to gape at each other.  Damien knew what they were thinking; how does a street brat like this know so much about the military?  One scurrying off to get the sergeant, Damien could barely contain his grin.  It was still fun playing with the newbies.





The fun of unnerving the guards overcoming his anger for the moment, it returned as the sergeant approached.  A short man, he was actually shorter than the two guardsmen.  And he was new.  Wearing a full but well kept beard the man scowled at Damien.  “What’s going on?” he said as soon as he arrived.





“He wants to see the Marshal,” said the guard who’d remained.  He pointed accusingly at Damien.





Holding his ground, Damien hurried to speak before the sergeant could.  Best to remain in control when dealing with sergeants, he’d been told.  Little more than the common soldiers they supervised, they were often drunk on their own power.





“Yes, that’s right,” Damien said.  “I would like to see the Marshal.  I hear he has something that is mine.”





“Humph, and what would that be?” the sergeant asked, his words dripping with contempt and skepticism.





“A letter.  Would you please take me to see him now?  I am a very busy man and I do not have much time to dilly-dally with you, oh-so fine gentlemen all day.”





The sergeant’s eyes narrowed and the man crossed his arms.  “Very busy?  I’m sure you are.  But a man?”  He guffawed at his own wit, causing Damien to roll his eyes.  Very funny.  “And why would the Marshal have a letter for you?”





Swallowing, Damien reminded himself that he could give as good as he got.  This sergeant, this man was not fooling him.  He could not push him, order him about like one of his little soldiers.  His name was famous amongst this city’s army.  His father was famous.





“Because I’m Damien Bynae and my father, Theirn Bynae, left it for me.  So, Sergeant, I’d appreciate it if you would take me to see him now.  Directly.”





The sergeant’s demeanor changed instantly when he spoke his father’s name.  Theirn Bynae had risen from the ranks of the common soldier to lieutenant, become Constable of the West Gate, and then Captain of the Citadel.  The highest post a commoner could achieve, Damien’s father had been only a few steps down in the military hierarchy from the Marshal himself.  And all by the age of thirty-five.  Discipline and vigilance, those had been his father’s watchwords.  Those and a combination of particular skills had been his path to success, skills Damien had been told he’d inherited.  His old master, Quartermaster Maël Virnaer, always told him that if he didn’t watch closely, Damien might be his boss within but a handful of years.  But that future, too, had come to an end with his expulsion from these very same gates.





All but coming to attention, the sergeant turned on his heel and led Damien into the Towers.  Smiling cheerfully, Damien nodded at both guards as he passed between them and beneath the gate.





Walking straight down the western road, the sergeant led Damien to the enormous edifice at the center of the Towers that was called, simply, the Citadel.  Fifty yards in diameter, the Citadel was a tower of black stone and mortar.  Rising just under one-hundred-and-seventy feet into the sky, those on the top story could see the entire city and the country beyond for miles around on a sunny day.  Hoping none of the soldiers drilling and passing to either side of the road recognized him, Damien stared up at that window on the Citadel’s sixth story which used to be his own.  This was going to be hard enough without his old friends stopping him.





He liked them still, sure, but he had come here for a purpose.  Afterwards he would meet them in The Boots.  He owed Erich that, after letting him and Twitch go and all the other night.  For that and for having told him of the letter.  But first he had to get his letter.





Challenged at the Citadel’s entrance, Damien’s guide quickly had them passed up into the tower.  They passed the Citadel’s mid-point before they were stopped again.  Once again they were passed on up the stairs until, three floors from the top, they were forced to wait while the guards asked their superior.  This was repeated two more times before they reached the Marshal’s office.  His secretary announcing him, Damien was finally able to escape the dour sergeant.





“Why, if it isn’t Damien Bynae,” said the Marshal, rising from his behind his great big desk.  “How are you lad?  Doing well, I hope.”





A large man, Caisone René, who was both the Marshal-General of the King’s Army and Lord Mersán—the title of he who was count of the Towers—was both tall and broad of shoulder.  Not yet forty, he was well over two-hundred pounds and a veritable giant at six-and-a-half feet in height.  Hair cropped short, clean shaven except for a small, thin mustache, he was just as Damien remembered him.  Muscles everywhere, strong features, a jaw that could crack the shells of the hardest of nuts.  Even the deep voice with its nice, kind words, all spoken in a tone of utter indifference.





The secretary closing the door as he stepped out, Damien stared around the office.  He had only been here once before, when he had run past all the guards to make his appeal directly to the Marshal just before he was thrown out of the Towers a year ago.  The skins of several polar bears and tundra wolves covering the floor, a narrow bookshelf stood against the same wall as the door while another wall was mounted with swords and knives, all set in a pattern radiating out from a central shield.  A third wall was covered by a tapestry depicting some battle or other.  A hearth set into the fourth wall, before which the Marshal’s desk was set, a framed map of the city hung over its mantle.





The crackle and popping of wood and sap in the hearth startling him, Damien returned his gaze to the Marshal.  He had forgotten about the wood; while almost all of the city used blubber harvested from sea creatures for the purpose of light and heat, most of the older buildings still used wood.





Lord Mersán was staring at him quizzically.  “I’ve survived,” said Damien, his anger returning.  To himself he added, No thanks to you.





No fear, he thought.  Lord Mersán had once been such a frightening character to him.  His size and his voice, strong like the battlefield commander he was, the mention of him had been enough to give Damien nightmares as a child.  But no, he had justice on his side.  Justice and right.  No fear, no fear at all.  Just anger.  Anger and hate.





The Marshal nodded.  “Good, I’m glad to hear it.  Here, why don’t you have a seat, share a cup with me—”





“I heard you have something that is mine,” said Damien, cutting him off.  Clenching his teeth, he gave the Marshal as stern a gaze as he could.





His eyes narrowing, the Marshal grunted.  “Right here,” he said.  Opening the top drawer of his desk he withdrew a thick envelope of parchment.  Barely able to restrain himself, Damien all but snatched it from him.  Eyes wide with excitement, his heartbeat loud in his ears.  Reading his name on the front, Damien’s anger evaporated.  It was from his father, it was his handwriting!





Hands shaking, Damien turned the letter over.  His thumb sliding beneath the envelope’s top flap, he was about to break the glued of the seal when he noticed something.  A slight tear, right in the middle of the flap.  Had someone already opened it?  Forcing himself not to move Damien looked as closely at the seal as he could.  The edge was ruffled, bent, creased in several places.  Other signs there were too: the corners of the envelope were dented in, lines creasing it here and there…someone had opened it!  His letter!  The one his father had written, to him!





The anger back in a moment, something else came with it.  Rage, fury.  He knew the words but had always thought of them as something like what anger was.  But now he was experiencing them.  He never had before but now he was.  Rage, fury, they should not have opened it.





Trembling, Damien opened the envelope.  Pulling out the letter inside, he unfolded it.  A second letter was folded inside it, contained within its own envelope.  A quick glance at the name, he couldn’t read it.  Perhaps it was in one of the scripts his father had used.  But no matter, the other one, the first one, he would be able to read that.  Sliding the second letter behind the first, he unfolded it further.





“What does it say?”





Startled, Damien leapt forward, spinning in mid-air.  The Marshal had come out from behind his desk and was now standing just behind where he, Damien, had been only a moment before.  He hadn’t even heard him move, not even seen him.  His face hot with emotion, his body burning with it, he lashed out at the Count of the Towers.





“It’s none of your damn business,” he shouted.  Backing away, he clutched the parchment to his chest.  “How dare you open my letter?  You had no right, no right at all to open it.  It was addressed to me.  To me!  From my father!”





“Here now,” said the Marshal, his voice loud and filled with command.  “I will not be spoken to like that.  Especially not by a—”





“By a what?  By a commoner?  By a boy you threw out into the streets because his father was dead?  By the boy you abandoned to a cold and merciless death?”  He was yelling now, really yelling.  Screaming more than anything really.  His voice cracking, Damien didn’t care.  All he wanted was answers.  What had really happened to his father?  Why was he just left to fend for himself, only prayed for that he might survive Avalla’s cruel winter?  And why was every one of those he met from his former life taking it as a granted that he would?





Because he was Theirn’s son.  The answer came to him in an instant.  He was the son of Theirn Bynae.  That was why none of them seemed surprised to see him alive but, rather, only to see him.  His father, he had heard that his father had powers, abilities beyond those of other men.  To go where and when he would, to pass unnoticed, to survive when death was beyond certain.  He had known everything it seemed, seen everything, always been where things were happening and, more often than not, at the center of them.  There was a reason he had risen as high and as quickly as he had.  And they thought he would too.  That Damien would be just like his father.  Perhaps he would be, perhaps not, that was still to come.  But one thing was certain; Damien was not his father.  He was not Theirn.





“I’m not my father,” he said to the Marshal.  Still trembling, he was no longer shouting, only speaking now, in a soft, quiet voice.  “I’m not him.  You had no right to open his letter to me.”





Straightening up, the Marshal pulled himself to his full height and squared his shoulders.  “No, you aren’t.  But I did have the right, every right, to open that letter.  It was found in my Citadel, written by one of my men, one who wasn’t even completely mine anymore…  I had every right to open that letter, boy.  I had to know whether or not it posed a danger to the city, to the king.  From the scribble there all that I can assume is that it does.  If you can crack that code of your father’s—”





“I wouldn’t tell you!  I wouldn’t tell you at all!” shouted Damien, cutting off the Marshal for the last time.  Sidestepping, Damien edged his way around the room towards the door.  “I’ll never do anything for you.  I’ll never say anything, never write anything, never translate anything.  I will never do anything for you Count Caisone.  Not now, not ever.  Never!”





With that Damien spun, pulled the door open, and was off down the stairs so fast that Count Caisone, the Marshal, could only blink at his departure.  Then he was at the door to his office, shouting into the hall beyond. “Stop him!  Stop that boy!”